OverallGood

We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider is meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014. The service met all of the regulations we inspected against at our last inspection on 26 February 2013.

This inspection took place on the 4/5 August 2015 and was announced. The inspection was carried out by one inspector. We contacted the provider two working days before our visit and advised them of our plans to carry out a comprehensive inspection of the service. This was to ensure the registered manager and relevant staff would be available to answer our questions during the inspection process.

On this occasion we did not ask the provider to complete a provider information return (PIR) before our visit. A PIR is a document that asks the provider to give us some key information about the service, what the service does well and any improvements they are planning to make.

Before we visited the service we reviewed information that we held about the service and the service provider including information provided by the local commissioning group. No concerns had been raised about the service from this group.

During our inspection we spoke with the registered manager and provider. We spoke with three office workers, three caregivers (care workers) we spoke face to face with two people who used the service, and three relatives. We also contacted three people who used the service by telephone after our visit to the office.

We looked at a small sample of records which included the care records that belonged to four people who used the service, five employee personnel files, individual staff training records, a sample of quality monitoring records and records relating to how the service was managed.

About us

Inspection checks

These checks were carried out under the inspection model that CQC have used since 2009. These will gradually be replaced by the CQC's new ratings (see below).

All standards were being met when the CQC inspected the service. If this service has not had a CQC inspection since it registered with the CQC, judgement may be based on the CQC's assessment of declarations and evidence supplied by the service.

At least one standard in this area was not being met when the CQC inspected the service and the CQC required improvements.

At least one standard in this area was not being met when the CQC inspected the service and the CQC have taken enforcement action.

New inspection ratings

The CQC are moving to a new inspection model and rate services according to how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led they are, using four levels:

Outstanding – the service is performing exceptionally well.

Good - the service is performing well and meeting the CQC's expectations.

Requires improvement – the service isn't performing as well as it should and the CQC have told the service how it must improve.

Inadequate – the service is performing badly and the CQC have taken enforcement action against the provider of the service.

No rating/under appeal/rating suspended – there are some services which the CQC can't rate, while some might be under appeal from the provider. Suspended ratings are being reviewed by the CQC and will be published soon.